A Light In Shadow
by skaldadottir
Summary: "He was a little girl in a strange body, one who had lost her father, her home, her country." A history of Sheik in five acts. Genfic.


**Fandom:** Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of TIme

**Characters/Pairing:** Sheik (Zelda), Impa

**Rating:** 13+

**Disclaimer:** All fun, no profit.

**Author's Notes: **Playing around with my head canon for Sheik and also some hints of how I see his relationship with Impa.

-Gender-related pronouns are variable when it comes to Sheik, be warned.

-Also, these are all double-drabbles, so they are all 200 words apiece.

**Summary:** _He was a little girl in a strange body, one who had lost her father, her home, her country._ A history of Sheik in five acts.

I. In the weeks after Hyrule first fell, Sheik did nothing but cry. He was a little girl in a strange body, one who had lost her father, her home, her country. He wept at night because he could not sleep; nightmares plagued him, some simple dreams, others dark predictions of what was to come. When the day came again, he wept from exhaustion. Mention of his father was liable to cause him to wail; any time they stopped next to a stream he would spot his reflection, new and alien, and end up adding salt to the flow.

Impa did not have the heart to scold him too harshly for his childishness. There were times when she herself wished for the freedom to sit in the grass and weep for all that had been lost.

The first morning after they had come to the vast desert sands, sneaking past thieves and ghosts alike, Impa found Sheik already awake. His red eyes glinted oddly in the pre-dawn light, but they were clear and dry.

For a split second, Impa saw the ghost of the Triforce flicker across the back of his small, tan hand.

She never saw her charge cry again.

II. The Sheikah of the deep desert had long ago defected from the ruling family of Hyrule, refusing to offer the forgiveness that Impa's ancestors had. Yet they would not turn away Impa, nor the little boy she claimed as her son; the days were too evil to let such a pair wander alone. But they pushed them hard, testing their strength as much as their loyalty, especially the boy who had obviously grown up in the lap of luxury. They had little patience or sympathy with his softness, not realizing they were replacing embroidery lessons with tests of skill and weaponry.

Only their chief was privy to Sheik's true lineage, and for that he pushed him even harder. He gave no mercy nor kind words, driving Sheik forth with continuous challenges. Sheik threw himself into them until they became a lifeline: if he was struggling against the chief, he did not have to think about the havoc Ganondorf was wreaking across his motherland. If he was training, he did not have time to remember his mistakes. He fought for every inch of respect he could earn.

Sheik often fell asleep sore and bruised, but the exhaustion kept the nightmares away.

III. Yet their days in the desert were not entirely devoid of laughter. Sheikah humor was as dark as the shadows they walked, but they were free with it. At first, Sheik could not understand their way of thinking. He was the youngest of the children by a few years, and they all teased him ceaselessly about his Hylian manners and quiet demeanor. It was months until he realized it was a form of affection. It was months more before he understood how they spoke of death and darkness so lightly. He had been there a year before any of them heard him laugh.

From that moment, his place in the tribe changed. He could speak his mind and play like the others, breaking through the reserved shell he had arrived with. The children readily accepted him as one of their, teaching him many a dangerous game that would have had his father rolling in his grave. Impa listened with fascination as her fair-mouthed princess told dark jokes and verbally sparred with his friends, polite niceties all but forgotten.

Soon Sheik seemed more Sheikah than Hylian, laughing as he wove shadow magic and danced with a blade in his hand.

IV. Impa's heart was in her throat for days as she counted, minute by minute, the time until she could go looking for Sheik. She had begged him to refuse the test, to not risk himself for the sake of pride. Yet nothing she said could dissuade him. This was the trial that would make him a warrior in the eyes of the Sheikah; this was his last step in becoming an adult. He would not back down.

She remembered her own foray into the shadow realm when she had been fifteen. The memory still made her blood run cold. Everyone who passed through the test came out changed in one way or another. She had seen some who did not come out whole. Some did not come out at all.

A week later, she found Sheik on a rock overlooking the camp, sitting cross-legged and calm. He wore the proof of his trial slung proudly around his neck. Yet he looked not at the tents, ignoring the celebration waiting for him down below. Instead he stared at the horizon as if he could spot Hyrule waiting on the other side.

"Impa," he said. "It's time for me to go home."

V. Impa had expected to lose Sheik and regain Zelda after the dust had settled upon the newly rescued kingdom, yet it was not nearly as simple as that. Occasionally she would enter her house, which had become a poor replacement for the destroyed castle, to find Zelda humming and spinning her skirts as she organized the house for another meeting. Yet it was just as likely to come home to Sheik noting out tasks for the next day in a mixture of Hylian letters and Sheikah symbols.

Finally, Impa had to ask why. At the question, Zelda had to pause to think about her answer, as if she had never considered it strange before.

"It's difficult to express who I am all at once," she said, if changing her entire anatomy was as normal as changing her hairstyle. Perhaps, Impa mused, to her it was. Zelda's eyes shifted, her voice lowering as the color swirled from blue to red.

"I am never not a daughter of Hyrule," Sheik said in his soft tenor. "And I'm never not a son of the Sheikah. I just have the luxury of choosing who the rest of the world sees." Somehow, it explained everything.


End file.
